New platform introduced this academic year

CENTENNIAL, CO (October 23, 2013) - Remote students at the Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences will be the first users of a new telemedicine platform that will allow them to meet “face to face” with their main campus despite being spread out across the northwest.

 “This is what it means to be a health care professional in 2013!” exclaimed Brandon Isaacs, DO.   “We are proud to offer our students this kind of ‘real world’ technology and give them this kind of practical experience as part of their training.  We believe whole-heartedly in embracing telemedicine because it helps us carry out our mission of bring care to those where access is often a challenge.”

Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences educates and trains health care professionals with osteopathic values and conducts research to provide quality care to communities of the Pacific Northwest, particularly rural and underserved populations.

The Virtual Care Works platform enables the students to meet with their deans in private, HIPAA-compliant videoconference settings so that they discuss patient data and conduct training in a secure environment.  The platform supports videoconferencing that includes multiple students, professors and administrators at once.

“This is an amazing technology and working virtually is a critical skill for our students to be exposed to,” said Dr. Isaacs. “We look forward to expanding the program and finding additional ways to add this platform into our curriculum and workflows, allowing all students and professors better means of remote communication.”

“Our goal as a University is to take the training of future physicians out into the communities where they will eventually serve after graduation,” Isaacs continued.   “This platform helps us to maintain great communication and education as well as administrative actions to those training in these remote sites.  Community based medical training is geared to assisting communities in rural area to recruit physicians back to their area and with this technology we can maintain necessary communication and high level of education in spite of the distances.”

About Virtual Care Works        

Virtual Care Works (VCW) provides secure, “medical-grade” communications solutions for health care providers.  The VCW platform includes tools to converse with colleagues and patients via videoconference, exchange medical data and images via secure email or text and collaborate across a secure, HIPAA-compliant network.  Healthcare organizations of all types and sizes are required to maintain the level 0f privacy and security this technology offers.  VCW has members nationwide and is headquartered outside of Denver, CO.

Comments and questions are greatly appreciated!  Feel free to contact Jim Ward directly: jim.ward@virtualcareworks.com

About the Author
Jim Ward serves as Telhealth Specialist with Virtual Care Works. VCW is a secure, private broadband network enabling the practice of telemedicine, telebehavioral health and medical education as well as the exchange of protected patient data and medical images. VCW is a NCHN Business Partner.